Tag: Castelfondo

Cecelia Joliat, a descendant of the Genetti family, is the granddaughter of Regina Branz Daly (1931-2017) and Dr. Joseph E. Daly (1919-2013). She is also the great-granddaughter of Henry Branz (1897-1971) and Erminia Genetti (1896-1971).

Last year Cecelia made the long journey to her ancestral home of Castelfondo in the Val di Non. Today Cecelia shares with us an essay she composed about her family’s homeland along with personal photos from her trip. Many thanks Cecelia for your beautiful words and images!

The Val di Non – by Cecelia Joliat

Winter and spring had met in the valley and decided to form a truce; through the air was warm, little patches of snow clung to the grass and hid in the shadows of the houses at the base of the mountains. The mountains themselves served to break up the monotony of the blue sky, which threatened to swallow the valley whole. Indeed, the Val di Non was a place of perfect peace and clarity, a place where the tedious actions of every day life seemed to be carried away with the wind. It was there that my family packed its belongings and, with heavy hearts, left the comfort and security of their homeland to travel to America.

Over a hundred years later, I was inspired to make a personal pilgrimage to the land of my ancestors, and what I found exceeded expectation. The hillsides were covered in bare apple trees, slumbering in preparation for the next harvest, and the roof of every church glittered like a green gem. Train tracks cut swaths through the fields and bored holes in the sides of the mountains, with the stops punctuating the vast stretches of empty land in between. Neither photographer nor painter could do such sights justice.

No measure of time spent in the valley would have been long enough, so when it came time to leave, I left with the same heaviness of heart that my ancestors had. The windows of the train framed the snowy peaks, quaint farms, and ancient castles until the sun retreated and I was left peering into the darkness, hoping one day to return. ~ by Cecelia Joliat

Ciao! I finally have an afternoon to chat with you! There have been so many wonderful adventures during this trip to Italy that I will probably have a year’s worth of blog posts to write when I get home. For now I’ll just share the highlights.

I spent most of last week exploring the villages of Fondo and Castelfondo located only a few kilometers apart in Trentino, Italy. My husband and I hiked the beautiful and mysterious canyons that weave through the area (more on this later), visited the Genetti casa in Castelfondo, made new friends, reconnected with old friends, and enjoyed the company of my Italian Genetti cousins.

Over the past five years I have had the pleasure to correspond by email with several people from this area – some found me, others I tracked down for help with various genealogy questions.

Marco Genetti, Louise Genetti Roach, Dino Marchetti

Last week I met with Marco Genetti of Fondo and Dino Marchetti of Castelfondo. Somewhere in the distant past Marco and I may be related. Since most Genettis can trace their ancestral root to Castelfondo, it’s a matter of finding a common relative. Marco shared a very impressive collection of documents with me along with his family tree. His family moved to Fondo from Castelfondo in the mid-1600s. Since I do have the original baptismal records from the village going back to 1565, I will be doing my homework when I arrive back in New Mexico to find out if we share a many times great-grandfather from centuries gone by. I also made a connection with Dino Marchetti through my 3rd cousin, Brian Lockman. You see I am also a Marchetti from Castelfondo through my fraternal grandmother (Brian and I share a great great-grandfather). It turns out that Dino is an accomplished historian and once the town mayor. Although we are not related, Dino was especially generous with his time, taking us on a tour of Castelfondo, giving us a book he had authored about the village, and sharing his archive of vintage photographs. Grazie mille to you both!

Marco Romano, Louise Genetti Roach, Andrea Cologna

I also met with my friends Marco Romano (a researcher and historian) and Andrea Cologna. Marco and Andrea were kind enough to be my guides on my first trip to Castelfondo in 2011. I have kept in touch with them over the years and treasure their friendship and wisdom. We had a lovely lunch together in Tret.

And of course I spent a good bit of time with my Genetti famiglia. Last Sunday the family gathered for a hike into the very high country above the village. Since my husband and I love hiking, this was a real treat. In the Trentino-Alto Adige, everyone (both young and old) gets out on the trail. And on weekends, it’s a family event!

Me with three of the Genetti sisters: Maria, Louise, Lidia and Luciana (missing is Adriana).

My closest Italian Genetti cousins are related through my great-grandfather, Damiano. The four Genetti sisters (Maria, Lidia, Luciana and Adriana) are my third cousins, once removed. This means that they are of my father’s generation and their great-grandfather and my great-grandfather were first cousins. Our closest common relative is my great great great-grandfather, Alessandro Genetti. The photo to the left shows me with three of the sisters. Unfortunately Adriana could not make it that day.

The family gathered in the morning at Maria’s home in Castelfondo. The sisters live elsewhere (Bolzano, Trento) and have summer places in the village of Castelfondo (some have apartments in the original Genetti homestead). With all the little ones packed up and ready to go, we headed higher up into the mountains above the village. After parking, getting hiking sticks and strollers out, we trekked up a beautiful path that wove through peaks and above valleys. Past grazing cows with jingling bells hitched to their collars, we hiked with other families to a mountain hut or “malga”. These respites tucked into the hills were originally a refuge for shepherds during the summer when they grazed their herds in high mountain pastures. Now they are restaurants run by farm families that feed passing hikers. The dishes are simple traditional fare – tasty home cooking such as dumplings and venison, beer and wine, apple strudel for desert. What a great way to hike with a meal waiting for you at the end of the trail!

Genetti cousins

After lunch we gathered outside the malga for a group photo, then hiked back down the trail. The day ended with espresso at Lidia’s apartment in the old Genetti home in Castelfondo. A great ending to a week filled with memories, friends and family.

The mountain hut or malga where we stopped for lunch. That’s Leonardo, Chiaro’s son and Maria Genetti’s grandson running ahead on the path.

View of the town’s fountain with the Genetti home in the background. Look for this landmark while you are walking around Castelfondo using Google Earth.

If you find genealogy a tad on the dry side, here’s a tech tip that will make it a whole lot more interesting. Why not take a walk through your ancestral village using Google Earth!

This is SO cool! You can be transported directly to a town in Europe (or anywhere else!) without leaving your home. I spend hours on Google Earth exploring places I’m going to visit on my next trip. So let’s zero in on Castelfondo, the ancestral village of the Genetti family and see what we can find.

If you haven’t already played with Google Earth, you will first need to download the basic software from the site. Go to https://earth.google.com. It’s free and only takes a few minutes to load. After you finish downloading you’ll see an icon on your desktop that looks like a blue marble with white swirls. Click on the icon and you are ready to explore!

Let’s get started. In the upper left corner you’ll see a search box. Type in Castelfondo, Trentino, Italy and hit the search button. In an instant you’ll be whisked to a small village in the Italian Alps. From this perspective you will see an aerial view of Castelfondo, the surrounding countryside and nearby villages. Zoom in using the “plus” sign found on the right side of the screen. Or for a lot more fun, grab the little orange man located on the right and drag him into the village. Now you are at street level and can take a stroll through town. Yes, really! You can walk the very streets your ancestors called home, all from the comfort of your desktop!

If you click and hold on the little orange man before you move him into town, you’ll see blue lines pop up on the screen. This tells you where you can and cannot walk. Once you are moving around town, just click on the yellow line to move forward. You can also click on the left or right of the screen to turn around and take in the surrounding view. To return to the aerial view, just toggle the button marked “Exit Street View” found in the upper right of the screen.

Of course, you won’t be able to adventure down every street, but you can maneuver around most of the town and see quite a few sites. Here are a few landmarks to look for: the castle on the edge of town (only seen from the aerial view), the town bar (right over the bridge and on the left side of the stream that runs through town), San Nicolo Church, the town’s central fountain, the village grocery store, apple orchards and vineyards that surround the town and Amici di Castelfondo (the local cultural and historical society). If you find the town fountain, look just beyond it and you will spy the Genetti homestead. Unfortunately you can’t walk right up to the house, but you can see the fresco that is displayed on the side of the home.

The grave marker for Famiglia Genetti Lanci in Castelfondo’s San Nicolo cemetery.

During my visit to Castelfondo, Italy in 2011, I had the good fortune to meet a distinguished gentleman by the name of Andrea Cologna. Born in the village, Andrea had left as a young man, living most of his adult life in Canada. He had recently returned to his childhood home of Castelfondo. Luckily Andrea was fluent in English, Italian and the local dialect of Nones. He was the perfect guide, telling me stories of the old days, explaining important village landmarks and helping me walk in the footsteps of my ancestors.

When we visited the small cemetery next to San Nicolo church, there were many surnames I recognized … of course among them, many Genettis. Andre brought me to a very specific part of the cemetery and pointed to several grave markers. “These are your family, the Lanci. The other Genettis aren’t from your branch. Damiano (my great-grandfather) was a Lanci,” Andrea said.

I was mystified, what was a “Lanci”? I had never heard this name before. So I took a few photos of the stones that read “Famiglia Genetti Lanci” and decided to look into this odd name later. About six months after my trip, I began researching the old church documents. And there it was again! The name “Lanci” was attached to Genetti in most birth, marriage and death records of my branch of the family, but not to other branches. It appeared in different forms such as Lanchet, Lancia and Lanci. Andrea wrote that he had done a little research on his own and found that the original form of the name was “Lanchet” which was Old German for the word “Lance”.

After a bit more research into Trentino history, I soon learned this “second name” was commonly used by large Tyrolean families to designate different sections of the family. It was called a sopranome or nickname. The sopranome had several purposes. It helped delineate close blood relatives so you didn’t accidentally marry your cousin, which could happen in a small, isolated community. It also identified a specific person. At any one time there could be five or six men named Giovanni Battista Genetti living within the village, as children were often named after parents, grandparents or other relatives. By adding the sopranome to the surname, one could tell the difference between Giovanni Battista Genetti Lanci and Giovanni Battista Genetti di Raina. Besides Genetti Lanci, I also found Genetti Onz, Genetti di Ovena (of Ovena) and Genetti di Raina (of Raina). These seemed to signify the main branches of the Genetti family tree.

Closely examining each generation in the ancient ledgers, I discovered the first ancestors in my direct line to have Lanci documented in a birth record was Pietro Genetti born in 1650. Most likely his father, Georgio Genetti (born 1623) had begun using it during his lifetime and passed it on to his children. And so this sopranome continued through at least eight generations, but was not used by the families that emigrated to the Americas. When my great-grandfather returned to Castelfondo to live out his later years, he was known in the village as Dominic Lanci. With the passing of three generations, the tradition of the sopranome has faded from our memories. What a shame! I rather like the idea that my Italian name could have been “Aloisia Anna Genetti Lanci”.

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Find out what's new on our website: site updates, new products in our shop, family tree info, new pages, etc.

June 25, 2018: New Sales page added to website announcing current sales and ongoing specials in our Genetti Family Shop.

May 10, 2018: Gus and Val Genetti receive Community Service Award from The Luzerne Foundation

March 8, 2018: the passing of Lori Zamko Liptok

February 3, 2018: the passing of Wilma Jean (Ortigo) Reich

January 15, 2018: the passing of Joseph Anthony LaPorte

January 3, 2018: congratulations to Jacqueline and Michael Sullivan on the birth of a son.

December 18, 2017: the passing of Leon A. Genetti Jr.

December 10, 2017: the passing of Olivia (Reich) Hearn

November 20, 2017: the passing of Regina (Jean) Branz Daly

November 12, 2017: the passing of Edward F. Genetti

August 17, 2017: lots of new family photos added to the Photograph Page in the Gallery section.

August 12, 2017: the passing of Robert Harry Pettis

May 4, 2017: 117 new family members have been added to the Genetti family tree.

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